I don't care. The rule for shopping overseas is that you buy stuff that you can't buy at home and I think this falls into the latter category, internet ordering notwithstanding - since it isn't nearly as fun to say "Oh, I ordered it on the internet" as it is to say "I bought it the last time I was in Paris".

It may be shallow and a tad pretentious but I don't care - I'm gonna do it anyway.

3.28.2011

Friday evening and Saturday morning were Beanless. By Friday bedtime, I was a little forlorn and on Saturday morning, I kind of didn't know what to do with myself.

I spoke with Aunt Julie, though, and you'll all be happy to know that both Beans were very well behaved house guests and enjoyed their sleepover very much. Lola had a big time at Bark for Life, where she walked with a dachshund named Dieter, and otherwise comported herself like the little lady she is capable of being when she chooses to. Finn stayed home with Uncle Chris and drank coffee and discussed the busted brackets....

Saturday, in most other ways, was strange. By all accounts it should have been a miserable day, and yet despite spending hours running errands in the cold, pouring rain, I enjoyed it immensely. I guess it just goes to show that attitude is 90% of your situation.

But the spring flowers and trees were so beautiful against the gray and the rain. And it was nice to have a fire Saturday night and to be snuggled in a warm bed with the rain on the roof.

On Sunday I spent the day with my friend Sarah and we had a lovely, long, relaxed brunch at Cafe Monte before doing a little shopping and then becoming the last two girls in captivity to see The King's Speech - which was an amazingly good movie and did absolutely nothing to assuage our mutual and raging Colin Firth lust admiration.

And then there was some random basketball thrown in. I'm gonna have to pull for Butler from here on out - just so you know....

"I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire.... I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools."

3.24.2011

This weekend, for the first time in almost 9 years, I get a night off from the puppies in my own house!

My head spins.

As I mentioned before this week, Finn and Lola are having a sleepover with their Aunt Julie and Uncle Chris so they are leaving this afternoon and will be back on Saturday evening.... which means that I get an evening and an entire day to myself with no puppy duty.

Seriously, Finn is almost 10 years old and I can't remember this happening in the past 6 years or so and seldom before then. Usually, if they're gone for the night, it means that I'm leaving the next day so there is usually nothing relaxing about their absence - in fact it often increases my stress.

But tonight, I get to come home and do --- I don't even know what --- but I will not have to walk the dogs and tomorrow morning I can sleep as long as I want and then sit and drink coffee in my underwear without having to get dressed and walk the dogs. It will be a rare and (for one night) lovely break.

Having said that, I imagine I will be approaching pitiful desperation by the time they come home because I hate it when they're gone.

So have a great weekend. And thanks for stopping by. I'm going to leave you with this, which I found to be a wonderful essay on the joy that our dogs bring to us.

Faulkner's distinctive narrative structures--the uses of multiple points of view and the inner psychological voices of the characters--in one of its most successful incarnations here in As I Lay Dying. In the story, the members of the Bundren family must take the body of Addie, matriarch of the family, to the town where Addie wanted to be buried. Along the way, we listen to each of the members on the macabre pilgrimage, while Faulkner heaps upon them various flavors of disaster. Contains the famous chapter completing the equation about mothers and fish--you'll see.

As I've said before, I was daunted by thoughts of William Faulkner - having heard all my life about how 'hard' he is....

But I enjoyed (and I have to say enjoyed is not a strong enough word) 'The Sound and The Fury' so much I have decided to read everysinglewordthemaneverwrote.

*ahem*

That's right, y'all, I've become a TOTAL Faulkner fangirl.

But back to As I Lay Dying....

I don't know what I was expecting but I can definitively tell you I was not expecting what I got and the only words I can think to describe it are "Hillbilly Clusterfuck".

I'm not sure if I would have identified so strongly with this if I hadn't grown up around these people, but I did. I understand the way they talk and the way they think. It was so deeply familiar to me. And I'm sure I'm not alone. We've all known people upon whom bad decisions lead to bad outcomes.

As I read this I just kept thinking "Oh, they're NOT doing what I think they're gonna do? Are they? Oh my goodness, they ARE!" In one moment I was crying, in the next laughing and in another wide eyed in terror and awe.

That's a lot packed into a little book.

If you haven't read Faulkner but think you might want to start, I'll recommend this to you. It's certainly more accessible than "The Sound and The Fury".

3.23.2011

This is the time of year when I spend a certain amount of time and energy plotting to quit my job, sell all my stuff and run away to a beach somewhere to become a bar tender and ride a bicycle everywhere....

I don't think it'll happen. That type of lifestyle will not support my handbag habit....

This Saturday, Lola Bean is participating in The American Cancer Society's Bark for Life. She was invited to walk with her Aunt Julie (known to the rest of you as The New Mrs. Barr) and she is very excited.

Since the walk is so early, Lola is going to sleep over with Aunt Julie and Uncle Chris (The New Mr. Barr). Finn is tagging along and will hang out with his Uncle Chris and do 'man things' while the girls walk - because he's disinclined to exercise and crowds freak him out.

If you would like to donate to Julie and Lola's team, you can do so by going here.

3.21.2011

I have been dreading doing this blog. Because I have to admit to you all that I did absolutely nothing this weekend.

I didn't put on any makeup. I didn't go anywhere - literally, my car didn't move from Friday evening when I came home from work.

I have nothing to report.

I was a total bore!

I had some vague notions to do some stuff. I meant to go to Target, put gas in the car, pick up the dry cleaning and do some yard work. I didn't do any of it. Not one thing.

What did I do?

I napped. I read. I watched TV. I walked the dogs. In a flurry of Saturday activity I changed the sheets on my bed and dusted downstairs. Other than that --- nuthin'. The sheets are still in the dryer. I had no desire to fold them.

Is this type of weekend necessary sometimes? Is it OK to hit the wall for no apparent reason? To be absolutely lazy and without motivation?

I hope so. 'Cause it happens to me about once every 6 to 8 weeks.

I did finish one of my reading list books. It was my least favorite so far, although it held my interest. I'll tell you all about it later. After I've had some time to think about it.

I have some plans this week. I have some arbitrations to deal with. Other than that my office is in fairly good shape.

My boss is getting ready to leave for a month - which usually makes me crazy. Yes. That is my life. I actually HATE it when my boss isn't in the office. He's my security blanket and I hate it when he's gone. I suppose that separates me from most of the other people working in America who view the boss' absence as a big bonanza work occurrence. It's my nightmare.

Thanks for stopping by - especially since I have nothing to say that is the LEAST bit entertaining.

"Read, read, read. Read everything - trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window."

This was actually 'my' pick for our reading list this year, after having read several good reviews about it.

It's a love story involving two Brits and checks in with them on one day - on July 15 - from 1988 through 2007, following the ups and downs of their relationship over the years. I understand that its funny, touching, romantic - all the things you sort of want from a book from time to time.

Last weekend, I read (with great interest) the profile of Syrian first lady, Asma al-Assad in Vogue's March issue.

And I think my theory has been proven right....

Vogue is willing and able to take that which is bloody, brutal, intrinsically horrifying and oppressive and spin it into acceptability and even admiration so long as it is wrapped in a pretty enough package.

Mrs. al-Assad's husband is a brutal dictator, crushing political opposition through torture, oppression and forced 'disappearances'. She is his lovely, thin, educated and stylish accomplice.

I was left wondering if Vogue, Anna Wintour and Joan Juliet Buck really believe the stuff they dished out in this article or if they just want to believe that they can get us to believe it. Syria is safe, progressive and culturally neutral? A secular government encouraging political participation among all its citizens? Really?

Not according to Human Rights Watch....

I'm really, really disappointed in this magazine. I came away from it pretty sure that if Eva Braun and Adolph Hitler were alive today, Anna Wintour would give them a glowing recommendation, so long as he looked good in jeans and she was wearing this year's Chanel.

I think I mentioned (a couple of times) last week that I have just finished The Sound and the Fury.

OMG, y'all!

When I went into this book, it was with a good deal of trepidation. I expected tedium, confusion, an inferiority complex. At best, I hoped to slog through it and say at the end: "Yes, I read it."

I did not expect to have a reading experience that changed my life. But this did.

I am so sad for all the years that I have lived not having read this. Or any Faulkner for that matter. I am busily plotting now to read every word this man ever wrote. I want to hang pictures of him in my house. I think that maybe if I had read him before (or during) college, I may have changed majors and become an English professor just so I could spend my life immersed in William Faulkner.

People have made careers out of analyzing this book.... I can understand why.

I do not believe that I am capable or able to give anyone any pithy insight into this work. I think that I have said before that I am not equipped to write book reviews, nor do I wish to spend my limited blogging time doing so.

I just wanted to say that I LOVED this. LOVED it. Was changed by it. Was carried along by words in a way that I have never been before. I felt so proud that Mr. Faulkner was an American, was a Southerner... was a giant.

March's classic movie here at Chateau Bee Charmer is "Network" which was released in 1976 and won the Oscar for Best Picture.

Here's what Amazon has to say about it:

Media madness reigns supreme in screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky's scathing satire about the uses and abuses of network television. But while Chayefsky's and director Sidney Lumet's take on television may seem quaint in the age of "reality TV" and Jerry Springer's talk-show fisticuffs, it's every bit as potent now as it was when the film was released in 1976. And because Chayefsky was one of the greatest of all dramatists, his Oscar-winning script about the ratings frenzy at the cost of cultural integrity is a showcase for powerhouse acting by Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway and Beatrice Straight (who each won Oscars), and Oscar nominee William Holden in one of his finest roles. Finch plays a veteran network anchorman who's been fired because of low ratings. His character's response is to announce he'll kill himself on live television two weeks hence. What follows, along with skyrocketing ratings, is the anchorman's descent into insanity, during which he fervently rages against the medium that made him a celebrity. Dunaway plays the frigid, ratings-obsessed producer who pursues success with cold-blooded zeal; Holden is the married executive who tries to thaw her out during his own seething midlife crisis. Through it all, Chayefsky (via Finch) urges the viewer to repeat the now-famous mantra "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" to reclaim our humanity from the medium that threatens to steal it away.

The thing about this movie that sort of struck me is that the ridiculous satire of 1976 is pretty much television par for the course now. Chayefsky was skewering a television industry that he felt would air anything in the name of ratings and that's pretty much where we are now. One of the main themes was the network's entertainment division taking over the news - and what a ridiculous proposition it was. Not so ridiculous these days.

Hi! I'm Tonya and this is my blog. I am an attorney and I live with two very spoiled Pembroke Welsh Corgis in Charlotte, North Carolina. As somewhat of a surprise to myself - and others - I have reached a certain age and failed to marry. Horrors! Don't worry, though, I'm not dead yet. There may be hope for me. In the meantime, I've decided to explore the life that you have when you are a girl with no husband and no babies. What happens when the choices you make lead you away from the life you thought you'd have? What sights can be seen from the road less taken? This is where I'll share my thoughts on life, love, law, corgis and my never ending quest for the perfectly appointed home.